TARGET: RUDY

EVEN as Mayor Rudy battles cancer and marital woes, the GOP power structure is planning his political funeral. “Giuliani can forget about ever running for governor,” says a well-placed Albany source. “George Pataki is putting him out of business. He would have to change states to ever get elected to anything.”

That would explain why the governor has been so eager of late to usurp what would appear to be mayoral functions, like shutting down Big Apple Tours and, most notably, apologizing to the family of police-shooting victim Patrick Dorismond.

My source echoes a widely held belief that Giuliani never intended to run for the Senate, that he was grandstanding by saying he would oppose Hillary Rodham Clinton. “It’s a cruel thing to say, but his prostate cancer got him off the hook,” adds my source. “We wish him a speedy recovery, but that’s all we wish him.”